


Thick as Thieves

by darkness_prince_dan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Phan AU, Phanfiction, platonic!phan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:34:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4499019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkness_prince_dan/pseuds/darkness_prince_dan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan and Phil are committing their last robbery but an unexpected development hinders their plans of easy retirement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thick as Thieves

The March air is crisp and cold. The sun just began its ascent in the sky and slants of light pierce the thickness of the forest trees making everything around seem ethereal and magical. The ground is covered in frost; miniscule icicles hug even the tiniest blades of grass. Wisps of condensed air are visible as the two men breathe out. It’s deadly silent. No one lives close by and there’s hardly anyone who would consider having a stroll through the woods at this hour.

_What are we doing? We should’ve called the Yard at once. Surely, they would’ve ruled it as self-defence_.

“Dan!” Comes an aggressive shout and the man in question jumps at the sound which echoes through the woods. Phil is furious. He’s staring at Dan with those cold eyes and the younger of the two tries to focus on what he’s saying. “Don’t fucking space out on me again. We’re in this together. Help me with the body.”

Dan just nods and grabs one end of the plastic sheet that the body’s rolled into. He concentrates on his breathing. Just in and out, nice and slow. They trek through the forest not saying a word. Dan trains his eyes on Phil’s back as he’s the one who knows where they’re going.

The two men finally reach a cabin. It’s wooden, not too big and located in the middle of nowhere. The roof, as well as all the walls, is covered in moss and several saplings have made it their mission to try and survive on it. The path leading up to the shack seemingly hasn’t been used in years; there are no tire tracks and weeds have already started creeping up and down the road, come summer they’ll be covering the path completely. Nobody would even think to come here, hopefully.

As they reach the door, Phil dumps his end of the bag. There’s a loud crack and Dan feels nauseous for the hundredth time in the past few hours. Phil manages to kick the door open and they carry the body inside.

Light comes in only through a couple of dirty windows. Dust motes fill the air as the bag is dumped on the floor. It’s shadowy and eerie inside but there’s a furnace which is why they came here.

“Give me the backpack,” Phil orders turning to Dan.

The younger eagerly complies and slides the heavy bag off his shoulders extending it to Phil. The latter takes it and kneels near the body. He takes out the tools and lays them neatly in a row.

“Find some wood and get the fire started,” Phil says as he uncovers the sheet revealing the body inside.

_~3 hours earlier~_

The alarm isn’t as challenging as Dan expected. He doesn’t even get a chance to use his ‘fancy equipment’ as Phil calls it. And Dan really wanted to; he paid a shit ton of money for it and used it for only a couple of their jobs, this being the last, he regrets not having the need to use it now.

“Well, that was quick,” Phil comments in a whisper as Dan opens the door of the huge house without making a sound.

“Apparently, the security system is not as sophisticated as we thought,” Dan answers unhooking his laptop from the security keypad of the door. The decoding of the password took only half a minute; either Dan’s hacking skills are getting better or this rich person has a really shit security system.

Dan cradles his precious  _MacBook_  in his arms as they walk inside the luxurious house. Neither of the two is fazed by the gorgeous interior design, crystal chandeliers or paintings worth millions; it’s not the first time they’re in such a house. Phil leads the way as usual since Dan’s not the one who memorises the plans of the houses; he’s more of a tech guy. They head up the stairs and into the right corridor. Phil stops at the end of the hallway. The door here also has a security keypad so Dan gets to work. This time it’s not so easy. He swears under his breath as he nearly trips the alarm but manages to install the virus into the security system and the decryption begins.

“I can’t believe this is our last job,” Phil beams in the moonlight that seeps through the glass wall of the second story.

“I know,” Dan smiles up at him as he’s sat on the floor with the laptop in his lap. “This time tomorrow we’ll be enjoying the warmth of the Australian sun.”

“And next month we’ll be in Argentina,” Phil continues.

“And then Hawaii,” Dan suggests lifting an eyebrow.

“Sure,” Phil shrugs. “We’ll have enough money to last us a lifetime and then some. We can go to bloody Antarctica if you want.”

“What in the world would we do in Antarctica?” Dan laughs lightly. He glances at the program on his computer; three more digits left.

“I don’t know,” Phil looks up and out the window. “We could tame some penguins and live in an igloo,” he offers grinning.

Dan just snorts.

“I’m not freezing my ass off in an igloo,” he says. “Let’s just go with what we have planned for now and then we’ll see.”

The code pad on the door beeps silently and emits a green light. Phil pushes the door open as Dan sorts out his laptop.

“Shit,” Dan hears Phil say silently.

“What?” He calls getting up off the floor and stepping into the room. He sees the problem instantly. Dan’s not an expert on safes, that’s Phil’s territory, but even he can see that the newest make will be a problem. That one was released only last month and Phil’s not yet had a chance to practice on it.

“Um, so what do we do now?” Dan asks worriedly.

“I’ll just try to open it,” Phil shrugs as he places his toolbox on the floor and kneels in front of the safe. “I mean, it shouldn’t be too hard, it’s quite similar to the one we had last time. The problem is that it’s hooked to the alarm of the house and if I make the wrong move, the police will be here in no time.”

“So then try not to?” Dan suggests lifting an eyebrow.

“Yeah, good call, I wouldn’t have thought of it,” Phil snorts as he gets to work.

Dan sits silently as always. He looks out the large windows of the office and tries to plan his future. It, of course, involves Phil, at least for the upcoming half a year because that’s how much of travels they have planned together. Later they might go their separate ways. Though, Dan hopes that they won’t; Phil’s his best friend, they’ve known each other since they met in the orphanage, they’ve caused trouble together and then they got into this business together, they’ve always been a team. But Phil just turned thirty a month ago and he’s been speaking about settling down for a year now. It was his idea for this to be their last job. Dan would gladly continue on this path but there’s really no point without Phil. Especially since the older man is the one who plans all the heists, memorises the layouts of the houses or art galleries or jewellery stores they rob. He’s the brain of this whole thing and Dan’s the one who hacks the security systems and creates viruses in his spare time. However, Dan will benefit from this too. He’ll see the world with his best friend, he’ll have a chance to relax without the fear of being caught by the police. And maybe Phil will get bored of such a calm life after a year and they’ll be back robbing rich people in no time. That thought makes Dan smirk to himself but his smile quickly disappears as a click of a door closing shut resounds through the silent house.

“The fuck?” Dan frowns standing up and going to the office door.

Phil stops tinkering with the safe and sits listening. Their eyes meet and Dan can see that Phil’s as confused.

“That wasn’t the front door, right?” Dan whispers.

Phil nods getting to his feet.

“Third floor, I think,” the older of the two says passing the brunet and stepping into the hallway.

The two listen to silence for a few seconds until footsteps on the stairs can be heard. They’re heavy and the person descending clearly knows that the house should be empty since he doesn’t try to soften his footfalls.

“Fucking hell,” Dan whisper shouts to Phil. “What are the fucking chances that another fucking person will decide to rob the same fucking house on the same fucking night as us?”

Phil glances at Dan with a raised eyebrow. Sure, there might have been one or two swearwords too many in his sentence but Dan’s nervous and when he’s nervous, he can’t control his language. So Phil can back the fuck off with his disapproving looks because oh my god what are they going to do now? Should they escape? Should they try and talk to this fellow thief? Dan chews on his lip as he considers all this, he’d be biting his nails but his hands are covered in gloves so he settles for the next best thing.

The person shows up at the end of the hall. The three of them freeze and then everything happens at once.

The guy drops his bag with his gear on the floor and pulls out a gun. Dan’s eyes go wide because clearly they’re not settling this calmly. Aiming his gun at them, the other thief marches straight ahead. He cocks the safety and puts his finger on the trigger. Dan’s flight or fight response seems to have malfunctioned since he’s frozen in place, mesmerised by the way everything seems to be happening in slow motion.

Phil, on the other hand, reacts instantly and pushes Dan back into the office trying to avoid getting them both murdered. They press up against the wall and Dan’s heart is pounding almost to the rhythm of the guy’s footsteps running towards them. As soon as he steps in, Phil grabs him by the right wrist and smashes his hand onto his knee knocking the gun out of the man’s grip. The pistol slides down the hardwood floor stopping just by Dan’s feet.

Meanwhile, Dan watches wide eyed as Phil receives a punch in the gut for his effort to disarm the other thief. The man tackles Phil to the ground and wraps his hands around his throat. Phil’s not much of a fighter, just like Dan, but he tries to make the man release his grip. That doesn’t happen, though, as the guy seems to be pretty strong when enraged. So Dan does the only thing he can think of: he grabs the gun lying by his feet and aims it at the man. He shoots exactly two times and then the man is lying on top of Phil whilst his t-shirt is being soaked with blood.

Phil gasps for air as he pushes the man off of himself. The guy lands next to him with a thud. Sitting up, Phil lifts his eyes to look at Dan. The younger one stands leaning on the wall, the gun is still in his hand by his side and he looks on the verge of tears.

“Dan,” Phil whispers hoarsely, being strangled does not help your voice sound better. He stands up and slowly approaches his friend. “Will you give me the gun?” He asks calmly.

Dan nods but makes no attempt to move so Phil pries the weapon from his hand. He tosses it away from them and envelops Dan in a hug.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs stroking the younger’s hair.

“He would’ve killed you,” Dan says into the crook of Phil’s neck, his breath warming the exposed flesh. “He would’ve strangled you, I had to do it, Phil, I didn’t have a choice, I couldn’t think of anything else, I – ” he chokes on the last words as he starts sobbing.

“It’s alright,” Phil repeats. “I need you to calm down, Dan. Can you do that for me?” He whispers to the younger not wanting him to start full out panicking.

Dan nods sniffling his nose.

“We need to take care of this,” Phil says pulling away from Dan but still holding him by the shoulders. “Find something we can wrap him in. A plastic sheet or something. There’s a garage connected to the kitchen, maybe you’ll find something there. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Dan wipes at his cheeks with the sleeves of his hoodie and stumbles out into the hall without glancing at the body.

“Shit,” Phil curses running his fingers through his hair once the sound of Dan’s footsteps has faded. “Oh, this is fucked up, this is so fucked up.”

He turns around to face the body and watches for a moment as blood leaks onto the hardwood floor. There’s no blood on the front of the man’s shirt as there are no exit wounds; Phil’s stainless too. But they’ll have to clean all this anyway. No body, no crime, right? And Phil knows the perfect place to get rid of it.

“Right,” Phil nods to himself and sets out to look for bleachers and sponges.

A half hour later Dan’s still mechanically scrubbing the wooden floor. The stench of bleach is overwhelming so Phil’s opened a window for him. Cold early spring breeze manages to get into the room making Dan shiver and ruffles the plastic sheet that Phil’s wrapped the body in. There’s no one in two miles of this house, everything’s silent except for some random animal making noise in the distance. Dan watches as the moonlight reflects in the bucket filled with bloody water and contemplates his poor life choices. All he’s ever done has led him to this moment. Maybe if he had made better decisions, he wouldn’t be cleaning the blood of a person he killed now.

“Oh, god,” Dan whispers to himself. He killed a person. He actually murdered another human being. He took away someone’s life and now he’ll have to live with this guilt for the rest of his days. How is it that only this morning he and Phil were planning their trip and life was so normal and now Dan’s a murderer? How could one decision turn him into this monster? How could he even pull the trigger in the first place? Was that always in him? Or was it just because Phil’s life was in danger?

“Dan,” Phil says pulling the other out of his thoughts. He’s standing in the doorframe and looking at Dan worriedly. “There’s no time for spacing out. I’ve cleaned all the other evidence. Now we just have to load the body into the car and get rid of it.”

“How can you be so calm, Phil?” Dan asks near tears again. “This is not some TV show, I’ve actually killed someone and I’m cleaning his blood. Jesus Christ.” He throws the sponge into the bloody water and sits on the floor covering his eyes with his arms.

“It was self-defence, Dan,” the older one responds. “He would’ve strangled me if you hadn’t done that. You made a choice and I’m really grateful you picked me over him,” Phil nods his head towards the body wrapped in a black plastic sheet dumped in the corner of the office.

“I know, I know,” Dan mumbles still covering his face. “But I could’ve done something different, I didn’t have to kill him.”

Phil stares at his mess of a friend biting his lip. The situation is shit, of course. He can’t even imagine what Dan’s feeling right now but they really don’t have time for mental breakdowns when they need to sort this situation out.

This is such nonsense, Phil thinks. They should’ve been done with this already and now they have to make a fucking corpse disappear. Like, what are the chances that the house they’re trying to rob will be robbed by another person at exactly the same time? Fucking coincidences ruining his life.

Phil sighs and goes to kneel next to Dan rubbing his knee soothingly.

“I’ll finish up cleaning and you load our equipment into the car, alright?” He asks patient as ever.

Dan simply nods miserably and goes to do as Phil asked.

_~Now~_

Dan flinches every time the axe hits the body. He’s not looking and certainly not helping because he almost threw up when he saw Phil hacking into the body for the first time. The reek doesn’t help either. It fills the hut and finds its way into Dan’s hair and his clothes and even when he steps outside, the stench manages to keep hold of him. It is all that exists in Dan’s world at this moment. Well, the stink and the sound the axe makes when it hits the body.

However, the noise alone makes the brunet shudder and clench his fists in an attempt to calm himself. Focusing on something other than the brutality that is happening behind him, Dan watches the flames swirling in the furnace. He idly wonders how long it will take for the body to burn down. And what then? What will they do with the bones? He doubts this fire is hot enough to burn the bones. They’ll have to grind those into dust or bury them. His morning is so not going according to plan.

“Shit, this is way harder than I thought,” Phil says catching his breath.

Dan turns to look at his friend. Phil’s hair is stuck to his sweaty forehead, he’s breathing heavily from the physical exertion and hardly holding himself up.

“Do you want me to help?..” Dan asks hesitantly. He really doesn’t want to chop a person he just killed but he’s trying to be polite, also, Phil looks like he’ll collapse on the floor anytime now and Dan wouldn’t cope well if left alone.

“You sure?” Phil asks swiping away his fringe with bloody fingers and leaving a red smear on his forehead.

“Yeah, of course,” Dan says in monotone staring at the blood on Phil’s face and hearing his own heartbeat in his ears.

“Okay then,” Phil shrugs and holds the axe for Dan to take.

The brunet comes closer and takes the bloody weapon. He looks down whilst Phil collapses on the floor and sighs in relief. The older one did a good job already, in Dan’s opinion. The ribcage is already shattered and the limbs are cut off leaving Dan the job of hacking all of it into smaller pieces.

“You could take the organs and burn them now,” Dan suggests staring at the corpse. This whole thing might be messed up but Dan’s trying to distance himself and think of ways to end this as soon as possible. “It would be faster.”

Phil takes his advice and Dan stands watching as his friend uses a knife to cut out all the organs and gets them one by one into the fire. It’s extremely grotesque but Dan can’t take his eyes off the dead body. He keeps thinking about ‘what ifs’. What if they got into the house earlier? What if he just knocked the guy out instead of shooting him? What if he had ignored Phil when they first met and hadn’t gotten into this shitty business with him? It was Phil’s idea anyway. He was the one who got them into trouble, he was the one with connections in the criminal world, he was the one who talked Dan into using his skills to hack into security systems. Really, if it wasn’t for Phil, Dan wouldn’t be standing over a corpse with an axe in his hand. Nor would he have a best friend who’s helping him get rid of said body even though he could easily pin all this on Dan and fuck off to Antarctica or something leaving Dan to deal with this shitty situation. Dan can try and blame Phil for this all he wants but really it’s him who fucked up and Phil’s been nothing but helpful, not forcing Dan to fix this on his own and actually taking control and taking care of this without virtually any help from the culprit that is Dan. Phil’s always been supportive of Dan; be it his failed romantic relationships, his existential crises or chopping bodies to pieces and burning them.

“You gonna do anything or?..” Phil interrupts Dan’s train of thought.

Dan looks up at him. His friend looks as if they do this every day; his eyebrows are raised in question like when he asks if Dan would like coffee in the morning, his fringe is swept up so it wouldn’t fall into his eyes just as he has it every evening when he gets tired after their movie marathons. But this situation is far from their normal routine and Dan can’t believe how Phil can be so calm and collected when his hands are dripping with the blood of a person that lies between them. All Dan wants to do right now is either scream at the top of his lungs or curl up in a ball and weep for several hours. Instead he answers Phil’s question by swinging the axe and crushing the skull.

Dan’s work soon becomes mechanical. Just swing and chop, swing and chop. There’s hardly anything more to it. Blood and other fluids seep onto the plastic sheet that the body’s on. The stench is almost unbearable by this point. But Dan’s blocking everything out. He leaves his brain empty of thought and concentrates on his muscles screaming in pain, on regulating his breathing, on the ribbons of crimson creeping down his fingers and soaking the cuffs of his hoodie.

Phil leaves him alone a few times to go collect more wood. Dan nearly loses it the first time. As soon as Phil closes the door after asking repeatedly if Dan would like to be the one to go out, Dan drops the axe and stares at the mess on the floor. The guy’s naked, his clothes are already burned, the ribcage is open, his organs have been removed messily, limbs have been cut off without any precision so chunks of muscle hang off where the cut was made, and the face is no longer there after Dan had a go at the skull. Dan’s been working on the legs, he’s got one almost done with.

But now he’s shaking and tears are streaming down his blood spattered face as he thinks what an awful, disgusting, vile act he’s committing. It’s repulsive;  _he’s_  repulsive. He should just go to the cops and tell them everything. He’d leave Phil out of it, of course. They’d arrest him and he most probably wouldn’t survive in jail but he doubts he’ll be able to survive this guilt, to forget this horrible sight before him, to just live his life as if nothing happened.

Then Phil returns with more kindling and envelops Dan in a hug saying he’ll take care of it and Dan can just trek back and wait in the car. So Dan chastises himself for being a wimp and not being able to deal with his own problems. He takes the axe back and starts swinging with more force than necessary. Phil watches him with a worried expression and then gets back to burning all the bits and pieces. After that Dan chooses to be as not bothered by it as Phil seems to be and to ignore everything until later when he’ll be able to sob in Phil’s arms.

They’re done by midday. Everything’s burned, including their own evidence laced clothes, and only the black bones remain. Those they grind into dust and together with the ashes from the fire pit pour into a river nearby while washing the blood off their hands and faces. The water is freezing cold and gusts of March wind don’t help warm up their hands either. But Dan feels slightly better after he’s clean and no longer has to stare at a dismembered corpse.

The drive home is a quiet one. Against all Dan’s protests Phil is the one who’s driving because according to him Dan has to relax. That’s not happening, of course. The brunet’s just sitting in the passenger seat and staring at the trees passing by. Soon a more urbanistic scenery changes the nature views and they’re back home in no time.

“Do you want tea or something?” Phil asks as he closes the door of their flat.

“Do I want tea?” Dan repeats turning to face his friend.

It’s too normal. Everything is the same as it would be after any other job and it somehow pisses Dan off. Their flat is the same as they left it, the light bulb above the stairs flickers as it has been doing for the past month, Phil’s asking him the same question he always asks after they return home. There’s no indication of what they’ve done anywhere and it should make Dan feel better because they won’t be found out and they won’t go to prison but it doesn’t.

“Sure, why not?” Dan throws his arms in the air frustrated. “It’s not like for the past six hours I’ve been trying to get rid of a body in the most gruesome way possible. It’s not like I’ve killed a fucking human being, Phil.”

“Dan, calm down,” Phil says trying to put a hand on the brunet’s shoulder.

“No, I won’t calm down,” Dan sneers at him stepping back. “I’m not like you, Phil, I can’t just fucking forget all this and act as if everything’s normal.”

“You think this is easy for me?” Phil says incredulous finally showing his emotions. His face turns into a look that Dan’s not fond of seeing, angry Phil is not one of his favourites. “I’ve been keeping it together for your sake,” he stabs an accusing finger in Dan’s direction. “Do you think I enjoyed dismembering a fucking corpse? I took control so you wouldn’t have to because it looked to me that you weren’t capable of that. If I had left it to you, you would’ve called the cops and now we’d be behind bars for a bloody murder.” Phil nearly shouts venting his anger and Dan flinches away from him.

All he’s said is true, of course. Dan’s always prided himself in managing to think quickly and getting out of tricky situations. Apparently, murder is his Achilles’ heel, though. That’s just too many variables that can go wrong and his control freak of a brain can’t deal with that. Now Dan knows his limit. He wishes he still didn’t.

They both stay quiet for a moment. Phil crosses his arms, his jaw is clenched and he’s glaring daggers at Dan. The brunet can’t actually see the glare since he’s staring at his dirt caked sneakers but he can feel it and it makes him feel small and guilty, evoking such emotions in Dan is Phil’s specialty. So as always Dan is first to speak up and apologise because he can’t stand it any longer.

“I’m sorry,” the younger one mumbles. “And thanks. I did lose it back there.”

He hears Phil sigh.

“It’s not your fault,” he says. “What we did was messed up but it’s over now and no one will find out, we’ll learn to live with it.”

“Right,” Dan nods. Suddenly he’s feeling extremely tired and all he wants to do is collapse onto his bed and sleep for a few decades. “How about that tea?” He asks looking at Phil and smiling sadly.

“I’m on it,” the older one answers with a grin of his own and bounds up the stairs to the kitchen while Dan crawls to their lounge.

However, Dan’s plans of slouching and sulking on their sofa are not meant to be realised. The brunet stops in the doorway when he sees that they have a guest. In their armchair sits a blonde woman bathing in the sunlight of the early afternoon. She’s carving an apple with an army knife and slowly lifts her blue eyes to look at Dan and throw him a smirk.

“That was quite a lovers’ quarrel,” she says.

“We’re not…” Dan tries to explain but who cares about that right now? “Why are you here, Natalie?” He questions crossing his arms and leaning on the doorframe.

“Natalie?” Phil appears beside Dan with a mug in his hand and looks at the woman bewildered.

“You missed the deadline,” she responds calmly. “My boss really needed those documents at six am sharp and she didn’t get them even though she paid quite a sum,” the blonde cuts off a piece of the apple and chews on it slowly. “Her deal didn’t go through because of that, she lost a client and now she looks unreliable.”

“It wasn’t our intention to screw her deal,” Dan sighs, he really doesn’t need this right now.

“We ran into a problem and had to take care of it. Urgently,” Phil adds to Dan’s statement.

“Yeah, I heard,” Natalie says still nonchalant. “But we paid to get a service and we didn’t receive it so what do you suggest we do now?” She stabs a cut off piece of the fruit and lifts an eyebrow in question.

“We can get the documents to you tonight,” Phil tries to bargain.

“My boss doesn’t need them anymore,” the blonde shrugs a shoulder.

“Okay,” Dan rolls his eyes. “Then we’ll give her back the money and it’ll be settled.”

“She doesn’t care about the money, Daniel,” she waves the knife around. “She needed that deal. Now it’s all done for along with her reputation. And that’s extremely bad for her business.”

“Then what do you want from us?” Phil questions. His fingers are tapping silently on the brim of the mug. He’s anxious, Dan notices. And he’s right to be; Dan’s heart is hammering as well. They so shouldn’t have taken a job offer from a gangster.

“Nothing really,” Natalie looks at the apple for a second. “My boss wants you to become a lesson for others. You know, the ‘don’t mess with mafia or you’ll get killed’ kind of stuff.”

“So you’re here to kill us?” Dan asks. His voice might have cracked but the other two pretend they didn’t notice.

“Nah,” the blonde shrugs a shoulder. “I mean, I  _should_  but I like you guys. So I’m giving you 24 hours to get the fuck out of this country and hide. But like, seriously hide: new identities, new looks, new jobs, no contact with your criminal buddies. Otherwise you will be found and you will be dead.”

“Right, thanks then.” Phil doesn’t sound extremely grateful but Natalie smirks anyway.

“Anytime,” the woman says getting up.

Dan and Phil move out of the doorway so she can pass by.

“Good luck, boys,” she winks at Dan giving him the carved apple and descends the stairs.

“Fucking hell,” Phil swears as soon as Natalie’s out of the flat.

Meanwhile Dan’s already in the lounge walking in circles and chanting a mantra of ‘shit fucking shit this can’t be happening what the fuck’. That pretty much sums up the situation and Phil feels like he doesn’t have much to add.

“Okay,” Dan says suddenly stopping and putting the apple on the table. “We have those fake passports so we bounce around the globe for a couple of days, get new fake passports and settle in some cabin in Alaska or some shit and never leave it. Simple.”

“Yeah, sounds great,” Phil huffs sitting in a chair and sliding the mug onto the table.

“Have any better ideas?” Dan bristles frowning. “Because I have been up for more than 24 hours, I’ve hacked a body into pieces and incinerated it and now I find out that we’re dead unless we fuck off somewhere during the next day. So sorry if my plan is not up to your standards,” he finishes crossing his arms and pouting.

“Dan, I was not mocking your plan,” Phil tries to clarify. “It’s just the whole situation is ridiculous. The job should have been so easy and now we’re running for our lives. And I’m the one who got you into this mess. I should’ve known that making a deal with mafia would not end well,” he sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, well, what’s done is done,” the brunet shrugs. “Let’s just stuff our suitcases with money and get out of here,” he puts a hand on Phil’s shoulder as he passes him by, urging him to pack.

When both of their backpacks are filled with cash in various currencies, Dan starts taking pictures of their home. He doesn’t trust his memory to recreate everything as it is so he immortalises it all, along with Phil, in hundreds of photos. As he does so, the both of them share memories: the time when they just moved in and didn’t have any furniture so they had to sleep on a mattress in the middle of the lounge for a good week, the numerous anime marathons they had, the myriad of times Dan totally crushed Phil on  _Mario Kart_  and then gloated for the rest of the day. It’s quite difficult for Dan to leave all this behind, to leave their  _home_  behind. Phil’s only consolation is to say that it’s good that they bought the flat last year otherwise their landlord would be extremely suspicious if they disappeared all of a sudden.

“You have your passport?” Phil asks as Dan’s locking the door.

“Yep,” the brunet answers. “John Smith at your service.”

“You’re so not a John,” Phil shakes his head climbing down the stairs.

“Alright, then what name would suit me?” Dan rolls his eyes even though he’s following Phil so his friend can’t see that.

“I don’t know,” he stops for a second on the last step and then turns to Dan with a smirk. “Winston, you’re definitely a Winston.”

Dan just stares at him for a few seconds without any emotion on his face.

“Winston? Are you kidding me?” He finally asks incredulous.

Phil laughs out loud and Dan pushes him forward calling him a spoon and saying that the taxi is probably waiting for them. He thinks he’ll be alright. At least as long as he’s got a friend who’s more than ready to help him cover up gruesome crimes and leave the country with him never to return.


End file.
